The Magistri Cæremoniarumcustodians and promoters of the roman liturgy

The text of the Pontificale Romanum dated 1485, compiled at
the request of Pope Innocent VIII, was the work of two men who, at different
times, were responsible for Papal Ceremonies: Agostino Patrizi Piccolomini and
Giovanni Burchard, respectively Bishop of Pienza and Montalcino and Bishop of
Civita Castellana and Orte. These men were two of the famous Magistri
Cæremoniarum Apostolicarum of the 15th and 16th
centuries.

The institution of the Magister or Antistes or Præfectus
Cœremoniarum Pontificiarum goes far back in history. We know there existed
in Rome in the year 710 an Ordinator, or a Maestro of the order of Mass,
or one who instructed in the ceremonies those to be ordained. From the second
half of the 6th century until the 10th century, those
responsible for papal liturgy recorded in writing the order (ordo) of
the main rites presided by the Roman Pontiff: the Papal Mass (about 690-700),
the Rite of Christian Initiation (around 560-580), the celebration of Holy Week
(around 650-700), the Rite of Ordinations (around 750), the rite for the
dedication of a church and the deposition of relics (around 700-750).

From the 8th century onwards copies of these ordines were
carried to Gaul at the private initiative of pilgrims and visitors, captivated
by Rome and its liturgy.As time passed, the Magistri Cæremoniarum
assumed ever greater importance with regard to the formation and development of
the Roman Curia, reaching the height of authority and importance precisely in
the 15th and 16th centuries.

To better grasp the significance of the text of the Pontificale
Romanum produced by Agostino Patrizi Piccolomini and Giovanni Burchard, it
helps to consider the work in relation to the historical period in which it was
born and the environment in which it was conceived. The period of history was
the late 15th century shortly before the Council of Trent, the
environment was that of the Roman Curia, as it had developed since the 11th
century. The Popes in that period, due to various circumstances and
difficulties, were forced to neglect direct pastoral care of the city of Rome.
This meant that their activity and attention focused increasingly on the papal
court and on those members of the clergy who were their direct collaborators.
The Pope and his Curia, detached from the Church in Rome, began to speak ever
more frequently of the universal Church while the Curia identified itself
increasingly with the Roman Church. This process became more accentuated during
the period of Avignon when the Pope and the Curia were absent from Rome. The
Curia eventually found its juridical structure, retained to this day, with the
institution of the Roman Congregations immediately after the Council of Trent.

The 15th century was also the period in which the long
process of clarification and formation of Roman liturgical books was completed,
mainly thanks to the work of those responsible for the papal liturgy. Until
then, the liturgy of the Roman Church had been enriched by various collections
of liturgical texts with different titles: Ordines romani, 'Pontificals',
'Ceremonials'. However neither the titles nor the contents of those collections
were well defined. The books contained very different texts: the Ordines
romani included not only indications regarding rubrics but also a variety of
liturgical texts; the various Pontificals contained texts for Bishops, but also
texts for priests and even commentaries and text for sermons; the Ceremonials
besides rubrics gave also various liturgical texts. The process of the
clarification of the contents of liturgical books and their sub-division, found
a point of orientation in the three Books of the Pontifical compiled and
arranged by Guillaume Durand (1237-1296), a canonist of the Roman Curia, and
later Bishop of Mende. This process was only completed at the end of the 16th
century and in the 17th century with the publication of the
Tridentine liturgical books.

The formation process of our liturgical books was accompanied by growing
influence of the papal liturgy on liturgical celebrations in the Particular
Churches. Little is known of the liturgies celebrated in cathedral churches
before the 15th century. Texts and rubrics for services for Holy Week
and the important solemnities of the liturgical year could be found in the
liturgical books in use at the time, but general norms or precise instructions
for Bishops to follow in the liturgies in their dioceses were lacking. The
desire for more liturgical instructions and more complete liturgical books was
keenly felt and widespread before the Council of Trent in the 14th,
15th and 16th centuries.

The Popes, through the activity of the Magistri Cæremoniarum, strove with
growing interest to meet the needs of the local Churches. It suffices to recall
for example that at the time of the Lateran Council (1123) not only Papal
Legates but the Popes themselves in that period, from Gregory VII (+ 1085) to
Innocent III (+ 1216), travelled widely in northern Europe, carrying with them
Roman liturgical books helping in this way to diffuse those texts. Increasingly
the liturgical books compiled in that period were the result of the adaptation
of the papal liturgy to the liturgies of the bishops in cathedral churches. The
Pontificale Romanum of 1485 is clearly an example of this process. Pope
Innocent VIII in fact requested a liturgical book for use in the different
dioceses and entrusted the task of drafting the book to the Magistri
Cæremoniarum of Papal Liturgy. The two Masters of Ceremonies reproduced the
Pontifical of Guillaume Durand and at the same time adapted it to meet the new
needs of the dioceses, omitting rites fallen into disuse such as the remanding
of penitents on Ash Wednesday and the celebration of Reconciliation on Holy
Thursday. The Pontifical arranged by them served therefore as the basis for the
Roman Pontifical of the Council of Trent published for the Latin Church in
1595-1596.

We realise then the important role played by the Magistri Cæremoniarum of
the Roman Pontiffs in the 15th century. Besides preserving Papal
Liturgy by keeping their Diaria and recording the liturgical texts of
papal liturgies, they also fostered the process of adapting the papal liturgy to
use in the dioceses. The twofold activity of the Magistri Cæremoniarum of
those times, on the one hand closely safeguarding the papal liturgy, and on the
other encouraging the celebrations in cathedral churches, was well expressed by
Magister Paris De Grassis, who around 1520 compiled a liturgical book for
celebrations in the Cathedral of Bologna (the volume was published in Rome in
1564), while he boldly opposed, even asking for the edition to be burned, the
publication of the Rituum ecclesiasticarum sive sacrarum Cæremoniarum Sacræ
Romanæ Ecclesiæ libri tres non ante impressi (the Ceremonial was published
in Venice in 1516 by Cristoforo Marcello, also a Master of Ceremonies and the
Archbishop of Corfù), considering it inopportune for a description of papal
ceremonies to be made known outside the papal court. The Magistri
Cæremoniarum of the 15th and 16th centuries, under the
guidance of the Supreme Pontiffs, were, in a way, guarantors of the tradition
and the evolution of the Roman liturgy. At that time the Sacra Rituum
Congregatio which would be charged with safeguarding the liturgy and
arranging the drafting of the liturgical books of the Latin Church, did not
exist. It was instituted only later in 1588 by Pope Sixtus V. We can say
therefore that the reform of the Tridentine liturgy had already started in the
15th century with the activity of the Masters of Papal Ceremonies.

The anastatic publication of the Roman Pontifical, an incunabulum of 1485
preserved in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, is therefore a window on the
pre-Tridentine period and the achievements of the great Magistri Cæremoniarum
of the time.

* * *

The publication of the Pontifical of Piccolomini and Burchard offers an
opportunity not to speak about the activity of the Magistri Cæremoniarum
of the 15th and 16th century, but also about the Archive
of the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff which
contains documentation on the papal liturgy, past and recent.

The documentation of the past consists of about 1000 volumes, some of which are
manuscripts. The greater part of the manuscripts are Diaria and
liturgical texts written by Magistri Cæremoniarum. The oldest one is
dated 1294.

Also preserved in the Archive are texts of Agostino Patrizi Piccolomini and
Giovanni Burchard, the Magistri Cæremoniarum who arranged the
Pontificale Romanum of 1485.

The Archive is the result of the activity and patient collection undertaken by
Masters of Ceremonies through the centuries. The overall arrangement, as it is
still today, is due to the Prefect Enrico Leonida Dante, who in 1954 renovated
the premises and, in the years that followed, divided the volumes in two
categories and drew up the Archive inventory. Also worthy of mention is the work
of Giovanni Fornici who in 1803 catalogued the volumes preserved in rooms
reserved for the Masters of Ceremonies at the Quirinal Palace. The same Fornici
mentions a collection of volumes accumulated by Mgr. Dini in his apartment, with
the consent of Pope Pius VI. The result was a considerable loss for the Archive
because following Dini's death in Venice in 1799, a number of hand-written
volumes were removed and sold. The most recent work to restructure the Archive
was done in 2003-2004 when it was divided into two floors, one for manuscripts
and older volumes and the other for more recent documentation. At present a
revision is being made of the older volumes and manuscripts in view of their
restoration.

With the Second Vatican Council, the activity of the Office for the Liturgical
Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff and that of the Masters of Papal
Celebrations assumed new importance in the liturgical life of the Church. First
of all because in the implementation of the liturgical reform of Vatican II the
papal liturgy experienced a fitting period of renewal, marked by a return to the
biblical sources and the patristic tradition. Secondly, the Office became
increasingly important because of the travels of recent Pontiffs to visit local
Churches in every corner of the earth and the worldwide coverage of papal
liturgies. In this way the liturgies celebrated by the Roman Pontiff, having
increased in number and in quality, became once again, in their noble simplicity
and beauty, an exemplary point of reference for the whole Church. The increased
importance of the papal liturgy, and therefore of the Office of Celebrations and
its Master, was accompanied also by new juridical norms. The Apostolic
Constitution Pastor Bonus in 1981 and Regulations of the Office in 1995
confirmed tradition with regard to the Office's autonomy and competence within
the Roman Curia. The Master’s authority to publish texts and revise the rites of
the papal liturgy was recognised. Significant in this regard were the
publications which the Office, with the help of its Consultors, recently
produced on the occasion of the major events of 2005: the Ordo Exsequiarum
Romani Pontificis; the Ordo Rituum Conclavis and the Ordo Rituum
Pro Ministerii Petrini Initio Romæ Episcopi. The publication of these
Ordines took up and continued the tradition of the great Masters of Ceremonies
of the 15th and 16th centuries and emphasised the
specificity of papal celebrations. This specificity is rooted in the Petrine
ministry exercised in God's Church by the Roman Pontiff, the Successor of the
Apostle Saint Peter. It was for the exercise of the primacy, which has its
theological foundation in the presidency of the celebration of the sacred
mysteries, that there has existed from the first millennium an Office directly
at the service of the Pope’s liturgical celebrations.

The Ordinatores of the first millennium, the great
Magistri Cæremoniarum Apostolicarum of the 15th and 16th
centuries and the Masters of Liturgical Celebrations of our day, in the work of
safeguarding and promoting the papal liturgy, remain nevertheless, humble
collaborators of the Supreme Pontiffs. Even the Pontificale Romanum of
1485 was drafted by the Masters of Ceremoniesat the request of the Pope.
The image imprinted on the Fisherman's Ring, proper to the Roman
Pontiffs, is an eloquent sign that, in actual fact, they are the ones who carry
on the labour of the Fisherman of Galilee through the history of the Church with
their constant commitment and concern for the liturgy. Like his predecessors,
Pope Benedict XVI continues Saint Peter's task of confirming the faith of the
holy people of God through the proclamation of the Word and the celebration of
the Sacraments.

***

Appendix

List of “Magistri Cæremoniarum Apostolicarum” of the late 15th
century and 16th century– compiled from documentation contained in
the archive of the office for the liturgical celebrations of the supreme pontiff.

Agostino Patrizi Piccolomini, Sienese.
He reformed the ceremonial of the Roman Curia. Appointed Bishop of Pienza by
Sixtus IV in 1483. Master of Papal Ceremonies under Pope Innocent VIII and
Alexander VI.

Giovanni Burcardo of Argentoratum (Strasbourg).
Master of Ceremonies to Innocent VIII, Alexander VI, Pius III and Julius II.
Appointed by the latter, 29 November 1503, Bishop of Orte. He was the first
Papal Master of Ceremonies to record ceremonies in diari from 1484, the
year in which Sixtus IV died, until his own death.

Paride de Grassis.
Master of Ceremonies from 1504 when Burchard was still alive. He was Master in
the pontificates of Julius II, Leo X, Adrian VI and Clement VII. Although
appointed Bishop of Pesaro, he remained Papal Master of Ceremonies.

Baldassar of Viterbo.
Master of Ceremonies in 1518 in the time of Leo X.

Cristoforo Marcello.
Master of Ceremonies to Leo X and appointed Archbishop of Corfù.

Biagio Baronus Martinelli of Cesena.
Appointed Master of Ceremonies by Leo X, he served as such until 1540. He died
in 1544.

Giovanni Francesco Firmano, of Macerata.
Master of Ceremonies under Clement VII (1523-1534). He held the same
responsibility until the death of Pius IV (1565).

Cornelio Firmano.He started his diari with the election of Saint Pius V, and concluded
them shortly after the beginning of the pontificate of Gregory XIII, who in 1574
appointed him Bishop of Osimo.

Francesco Mucanzio, nephew of Biagio da Cesena.
His diari start from the year 1573.

Paolo Alaleona.Appointed Master of Ceremonies under Sixtus V (1585-1590). He was a Canon of
Saint John Lateran. He kept his diari until 6 August 1637.

Giovanni Battista Alaleona.
Appointed Master of Ceremonies during the pontificate of Paul V (1605-1621). He
wrote a number of diari which were then continued by his nephew Gaspare
Servanzio.

Giovanni Paolo (or Pietro) Mucanzio.Appointed Master of Ceremonies under Gregory XIV (1590-1591). He kept his
diari until the time of Paul V. He was Secretary of the Sacred Congregation
for Rites.